Quick children, the hype machine is here! You never know what tripe it might sling out at you for no good reason other than advertising purposes. Duck and cover, as this year it was worse than the last. For reference, last year was mildly more interesting than the first PC Gaming Show at E3 2015. I found myself looking at the solid pit of despair that froze over in the middle of the pre-show, thinking it would be about time to jump head-first into that from a vast height. It was one contrived introduction to an advert after another contrived introduction to an advert. It was bloody horrible.

I’m going to jump ahead past the pre-show for a moment and mention the “awards,” awards given to games that no one has, no one has played, and have only generated hype so far. Wait, how did you know Geoff Keighley was involved in this show, was it all the hype? Little Nightmares 2 ‘won’ the awards for “Best Switch Game” in the most contrived way, Watch Dogs: Legion got “best action-adventure” somehow, Star Wars: Squadrons is apparently the best action game, Operation Tango is something I’ve never heard of and ‘won’ best multiplayer game, Curious Expedition 2 is apparently the best indie, and “the best Sony PlayStation Game” is Cyberpunk 2077. Even though it is on PC, current generation, and next-generation consoles.

Onto the pre-show, which was a complete waste of time and could have just been corralled into the main show that was already 2-hours long. It was focused more on showing off a few trailers with a man who wasn’t funny, yet desperately tried to be. To put it like anyone from Scotland, he died on his hole. The first game shown off was not a new one, in fact, for a minute I thought it was anime Dark Souls again, or as Bandai Namco called it Code Vein.

Scarlet Nexus is an action-adventure anime-styled RPG where you fight overly designed big monsters covered in glowy bits. You do this while you are either a sole teenager that spends hours styling their hair and picking out fluorescent clothes before school, or a group of them. Other than that, no information has been released. It is very pretty though, I do like the look of it, and I’d be mildly interested once more details are released. No release date has been given as of yet.

Quantum Error looks to be about as subtle as flinging an airhorn down an elevator shaft after a lift full of pensioners just left from the floor below. It is a typical body horror, jump scare focused, Dead Space ’em up, which some people want. I can’t really begrudge them for that. It just proves once again that I’m not into what seems to be the trend for horror these days. Very few details came from the trailer, though a bit of research discerned that Teamkill Media are developing it for PS5 and PS4 only.

Remember when Xbox would do these reveals of Forza at E3, back when we had an E3? Well, this is that, but more if you could believe it. Ford has co-designed a concept hypercar that was designed by Twitter poll and looks bloody awful. Does anyone else remember Boaty McBoatface? The Fordzilla P1 is meant to show what high-performance cars will look like in the future. Though honestly, a cautionary tale of extendable baseball bats, hoverboards, and riding the front of a train to jump to the future comes to mind. According to Ford, they are working with a producer to get the car “into a well-love[d] game,” so that’s Forza or Gran Turismo.

Dirt 5, it has a Playgrounds mode that I broke in such a way Codemasters don’t know how to fix it. I’ve known about this one for a while. It is a creation tool for those of you who enjoy creating community-based events. Think Super Mario Maker, but with a lot more dirt, cars, and an arena of empty seats. It is an interesting idea, though if you want to play around with this you will need a moderately up to date high-performance PC, Xbox Series X, or PS5. The latter two boast modes that run at 120 frames-per-second. Dirt 5 will release on PS4, Xbox One, and PC on October 16th.

If you want to dip into and out of the management of a camarasaurus supremus on the go, Jurassic World Evolve: Complete Edition has been announced for the Nintendo Switch. The complete experience of the moderately fine management game will be available from November 3rd this year, proving once and for all that I’ll never remember to call it Jurassic World. I’ll just call it Jurassic Park.

Now onto the main show, and Keighley sensibly didn’t try to be funny, or at least as hard as 40-something Tony Hawk’s create-a-character was.

God-president Reagan, what did they do to you? You look like a half-melted waxwork of all the Rolling Stones now. Yes, it must be that time of year where particularly young men who wouldn’t know what the female orgasm would look like if it sat on their face, but they could field strip a rifle in 5-seconds flat, get a little bit happy they can shout slurs on the internet again. After Wednesday’s reveal of America’s last major fear that’s still clung to, the one before “brown men are terrorists,” Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War showcases a new cinematic trailer of the series’ next incarnation. 

Unknown 9: Awakening, looks very pretty and could prove to be interesting going into a world not often explored in games. All the same, the title shouldn’t reflect what I feel about the game, unknown. All we do know is the setting and that it will release on PC and next-generation consoles at some point.

Doom, dread, despair, all words I think most people think of when they hear the name Bethesda Softworks; Don’t worry, it’s not an RPG turned into an MMO, yet. DOOM: Eternal is seemingly the only new game the company will release this year. As a result it is fitting the only thing releasing late in the year for the company is DLC for it. The Ancient Gods, Part One is a bit more DOOM for those that don’t feel like they’ve had enough. The Ancient Gods, Part One will release on the 20th of October.

Dragon Age is a series I’ve yet to find interest in, after Mass Effect, I worry I’ll be boggle-eyed to death by a dragon that wants to have lesbian sex with me. The developers of the next one, which I’ve been promised (by fans) is really happening and won’t get canceled by EA, got together to collectively say “don’t hate us when you hate this one and EA shuts us down!” I can’t wait for it to come out in the year 2075, so I can continue to ignore it.

• Doc Brown introduced a trailer of people I hate yelling at microphones; and Surgeon Simulator 2‘s release trailer.
• Bridge Constructor was popular in 2011, so was The Walking Dead. So here comes a match made in the apocalypse. Coming later this year.
• Sam & Max are getting a VR game. It is coming next year, though there is not much else to say really.
• World of Warcraft is getting a four-part animation series called Afterlives, and Shadowlands releases this October.
• Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Storm Ground had a trailer and a bloody long title.
• Crash Bandicoot 4: It’s About Time didn’t get a trailer, but did get a small clip about “flashback tapes.” The secret levels akin to the games before.

Outriders is a Destiny 2-like that was so interesting there was hardly an advert for it that’s not been preserved by Opening Night Live or major publications. Instead, I’ve linked what they were trying to promote, which is the modding of weapons and armor. Honestly, it is something that bores me to death like every other numbers shooter.

Another announcement that didn’t have a trailer and I still don’t care if it was preserved or not was Hyper Scape. It is almost as if Ubisoft is trying to quickly move on from the story of abuse in their studios with social media hype of Hyper Scape, Far Cry 6, and nothing else.

• Captain Tsubasa: Rise of New Champions releases today, there was a launch trailer.
• Necromunda: Underhive Wars did such an awful job at explaining what it was, I thought this tactical RPG in the 40K universe was a battle royale. I’m interested in that!
• Lodged in the ad breaks alongside Red Bull ads were pieces about preaching to the choir. “Aren’t games wonderful?” they would preach, at a digital event from a digital gaming convention.

Teardown is a game I want now, I want it in my face! Ok, yes it is a voxel art game with shaders to make it look pretty, but I don’t care about the graphics. A world where I could destroy everything, literally everything? I’m plowing a flaming 18-wheel truck through Walmart the next time all the self-serve checkouts are being used, I’d destroy the universe if I was forced into small talk. This is a game I want and need right now!

Little Nightmares II is what would happen if Limbo didn’t understand what the word subtle meant. It is releasing February 11th, 2021.

WWE 2K Battlegrounds, the game that 50-percent want more than their own blood, and the other 50-percent have nothing but ire for it, came up next. It is the Marmite of games for WWE fans, it is a good thing Marmite is more important than family, apparently. What also seems to be important is having Jerry Lawler, a man that’s thrown out casual racism on Live TV this year, and Mauro Ranallo on commentary for the game. Mauro is the exact voice you need for a cartoonish game, too bad Lawler is a different kind of cartoonish.

Star Wars: Squadrons continues to be a mystery. It is a Star Wars single player game that hasn’t been canceled that I wouldn’t mind playing. As I’m sure was previously stated, you’ll bounce between alliances gunning down both the rebels and the space edge-lord fascists. It seems to be a game of one of the more epic scenes in Star Wars: Battlefront II, the dog fights are always tricky and fun in concept. We’ll find out if it is this October 2nd.

Oh, and space fascism is all the rage in The Sims 4 now too.

Easily the most interesting concept given for a game, 12-Minutes (/Twelve Minutes) is that very intriguing gaming from the Xbox E3 showcase of 2019. So what’s weird is stunt casting William Dafoe, James McAvoy, and Daisy Ridley in the game that was already interesting. If you weren’t interested already, what’s wrong with you? Though, if you were already into it, why did this make you look at it with the feeling of “meh?”

• Godfall only had a “World Premiere” clip of non-sequitur combat instead of a prolonged description by the world’s most boring man.
• Override 2: Super Mech League landed with a splat of wet meat thrown out a New York apartment.
• Mafia: Definitive Edition had a story trailer and an awful Irish accent.
• Lemnis Gate is a multiplayer turn-based first-person shooter on battleship-grey maps. Nah, I’m fine, keep that one.
• Fans of LEGO Star Wars will be disappointed, and not because the Skywalker Saga was delayed to 2021. it will feature proper voice acting.

Struggling is a horrid cartoonish disgusting piece of physics-based platforming brilliance currently out on the Nintendo Switch and PC. That looks great!

• Age of Empires III: Definitive Edition was announced for October 15th.
• Dark Picture Anthology: Little Hope has little hope of exciting me by October 30th. Zoë might like it though.
• Project Cars 3 releases today, I want to play it… yesterday!
• While Keighey was trying to be serious about planting trees or something, he slipped up and said “one gay.” This was as funny as the entire two and a half hours were.
• Chorus (or Chorvs as it seems to be styled as) looks to be about as exciting as a wet fart in a lift full of nuns. It is coming in 2021.

Fall Guys, or the colorful video game take on Takeshi’s Castle, had a trailer for its second season of content even though it was just released. I guess if you like the idea of similar games you’ve already played but medieval, you’ll like this coming season. No date was given.

Wasteland 3 had a trailer, and I couldn’t be happier. I was concerned I’d be the only one to like it given my penchant, for lack of a French word, for RPGs people don’t like because they are called Fallout 4. Yes, the reviews, including mine linked above on God-president Reagan’s name, are in and they seem to be highly praising. Good, it deserves it!

If you believe Vince Zampella on everything, you believe “The Medal of Honor franchise is […] grounded in history.” You must also believe that pigs can fly, politicians can’t lie, and that brown men are all terrorists, at least that’s what “Warfighter” would make you believe. Yes, the last game was steeped in that much history, the U.S claimed to be pre-historic. To turn hard-right on this, I’m fine killing Nazis, let’s go back in time and kill Hitler for the fun of it! What I don’t care for is this complete pile of horse smeg where we’re calling the Medal of Honor series serious while promoting a colorful, “YAY, killing is fun, let’s kill Nazis for the fun of it and pretend we’re serious” game.

The only way Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond is serious, is that it seriously wants to kill lots of Nazis. My issue is claiming to be the series about taking things seriously while not taking into account the serious mental implications of gunning down hundreds of people might have. Every bit of the trailer looks to be about as serious as a Nazi shooting gallery on the hills of the Teletubbies.

If you thought battle royales were overdone before, you didn’t live to see the battle royale based on magic. Spellbreak is just that, and I’m already bored of it. It looks pretty in the trailer, until you hit gameplay and it is just Fortnite which can be as free as a Gitmo prisoner for all I care. It is coming out on September 3rd.

If you like old games, Turrican is getting a 30th-anniversary edition. I’d honestly never heard of it before this.

Destiny 2: Beyond Light is set to rip out a lot of useless guff and replace it with more tripe. One of the gameplay “changes,” is the stasis effect available via subclasses. I’ve no idea what any of this is about, nor do I care. Beyond Light will be available on November 10th.

To close the show we got a bit of a gameplay demo of that footage we’ve already seen, though smoother, revealing the bionic albino female Lombax in the alt dimension. Yes, I’m talking about Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart, a game I’m sure many of us old fans are excited for. The sad truth is, it was all for the aim of hype, as Keighley tried to get a release date out of the devs and they kept it to “the PS5 release window.”

Sony, you want to get in someone’s good books? Closing that show with the reveal of your consoles release would have put Microsoft on a bit of a backfoot for a day or so. Instead, the day before Opening Night Live kicked off, pre-orders for the PS5 went live without a price. No, I’m not joking you can now buy a PS5 without knowing the price, what a waste of time that is!

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